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DIY Christmas 2013 Part 2.

In the previous post I explained that I wanted to give DIY gifts this year for Christmas. I love giving gifts because I love the challenge of trying to find gifts that are meaningful.

This post talks about the present that I gave my mom. She works as a nurse on the over night shift. During the day she watches my 5 year old sister , works on sewing projects, and sells Tupperware. A few months ago she asked me to help create her business cards and a label to put on her catalogs. Since her first order of these I know she has ran out of stock so I decided to reorder her cards and labels.

In November I stayed at my parents' house for my brother's wedding. I noticed that my mom's Tupperware business was taking off and she had no storage for all her inventory. Her piano room, that is somewhat of a sanctuary for my mom, had suddenly been taken over by plastic casserole dishes and Tupperware branded boxes. If my mom needed anything for Christmas it was some place for her to conduct business.

My brother and I put our heads and money together to create a craft/hobby room for my mother. She loves to sew and is always working on new projects. This could also serve as a place to store her Tupperware inventory as well as her catalogs, invoices, business cards, and other business things. In our parent's basement there is an slightly unfinished, cluttered storage room. We knew that this would probably be the best place for us to create a place that is only designated for our mom and her hobbies. Here is what we started with:

My brother and I recruited some of our other siblings, including our extremely pregnant sister (pictured above) to help clean out and organize the room. We got rid of a few broken pieces of furniture, empty cardboard boxes, and put boxes that were storing items into another, slightly more organized storage room in the house. We then organized all the sewing scraps, sewing patterns, and Tupperware.

After the organization was complete we went shopping. We purchased a comfy chair, a colorful rug, Rubbermade storage drawer, industrial shelves, a small ironing board, a clothing rod, and a small table for our 5 year old sister to play at while my mom is working on projects.

It was hard trying to keep this project a secret from our mom. She knew something was going on in the basement but we told her that she couldn't go in that room because we were hiding her Christmas present in there. Knowing my mom, she totally peaked.